“HOW CAN I DISTURB SOCIAL ORDER? What happens in my house is a private matter.” A criminal trial over “group licentiousness” in China.

“WE NEVER MAKE ASSERTIONS.” A gaffe or did Ayn Rand have “a really, really dry sense of humor”?

IF THE SUPREME COURT CHANNELS “THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE,” how exactly do “the people” communicate with the Court? Barry Friedman answers — in the SCOTUSblog live-chat — “gosh, the justices *are* living in the world with us; they read the papers, watch the news, go to cocktail parties. chief justice rehnquist discussed this in print. the people don’t have to speak directly to them – as president obama did at the state of the union – the constitutional conversation just goes on around them.” Good thing MSM tells it straight… and in vino veritas.

“NOW THAT THE SEX LIVES of Supreme Court justices have become grist for commentators, we are finally free to discuss a question formerly only whispered about in the shadows….”

“YOU KNOW WHAT NAYSAYERS ARE SAYING?” Well, I‘m saying I’m no naysayer when it comes to Crackskull Bob drawing TV pundits.

MARRY SOMEONE YOUR OWN AGE and live longer.

GOING TO JAIL for dangerous art. And it was political too. Lewis Greenberg was trying to say something about the Holocaust with his pointy front-yard sculpture. But think of the poor children who might be impaled. And the adults who think it’s really ugly.

“TO SEE RESISTANCE FROM A WOMAN MEANS A LOT.”

“WHAT DOES A SCANTILY-CLAD BEAUTY QUEEN of Lebanese descent have to do with a cloister of fresh-faced nuns habited from head to toe?”

THE PRESS IS FREE to write that Obama signed a free speech law and then refused to take any questions from the press.

WISCONSIN NIGHTMARE. A sign at a farm equipment business on U.S. 12 near Sauk City:

“VERY BAD NEWS FOR CONSTITUTIONAL FEDERALISM,” says Ilya Somin. And though “the statute involved here is somewhat peculiar,” the Chief Justice’s joining the majority is not a good sign, says Eugene Volokh. But, “the case has little or no import for the constitutional challenges to the individual health insurance mandate,” says Randy Barnett.

DOES THE CONSTITUTION MEAN WHAT THE PEOPLE WANT IT TO MEAN? NYU lawprof Barry Friedman is doing a live chat on SCOTUSblog tomorrow — and you can submit questions in advance here if you want. His book is “The Will of the People: How Public Opinion Has Influenced the Supreme Court and Shaped the Meaning of the Constitution.”

SPIKE-NOSED TREE FROG.

DISCUSSING A SCIENTIFIC PAPER MIGHT AMOUNT TO SEXUAL HARASSMENT. It depends on the details, doesn’t it? “Bat fellatio causes a scandal in academia” is a jokey headline, but the punishment is no joke.

WHAT SCHOOLS BELONG IN THE BIG TEN? Wisconsin lawprof Walter Dickey says: “There is a strong feeling of Midwestern values and culture that is a part of the conference.” Would that apply to Notre Dame, Nebraska, Missouri, Pittsburgh, Texas, Rutgers, and Syracuse — all schools rumored to be in the running?

“I’M A HUGE BELIEVER IN STATES’ RIGHTS” — something to add to your list of things not to say if you want to win a beauty pageant.

“METALHEADS MAY SHED TEARS THIS DAY, but we raise our horns in remembrance.”

“I LOVE IT when you talk dirty to us, Althouse.”

THE IDEA THAT THE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT MIGHT BE AN INCUBATOR OF FEMINISM makes Michelle Goldberg want to bash her head against a wall.

“CUT DEEPER. PULL HARDER.”

WITHOUT MURDER, it’s cruel and unusual punishment to sentence a juvenile to life in prison without parole, writes Justice Kennedy for a 6-3 Court. Dissenting, Justice Thomas criticizes the majority for imposing “an exacting constraint on democratic sentencing choices based on … such an untestable philosophical conclusion”: “that a 17-year-old who pulls the trigger on a firearm can demonstrate sufficient depravity and irredeemability to be denied reentry into society, but… a 17-year-old who rapes an 8- year-old and leaves her for dead does not.”

GLENN SAYS IT SHOULD BE “LIVELY ENOUGH” HERE with me and Megan, Michael, Ed, Radley, and Mark. And I hope the “enough” in “lively enough” is not like the “enough” in “You’re likable enough….”

McDONALD’S, INTERSTATE 74, Illinois.

(Blogging from the road, yesterday.)

DO BRAS PREVENT SAGGY BREASTS? “There is, so far as [The Straight Dope] can discover, zero evidence that bras prevent saggy breasts.” I recommend bralessness. At least don’t let fear of drooping breasts stop you.